AI Subscription Comparison Chart

A side-by-side reference for every major AI subscription tier, updated for July 2026. Use it to sanity-check a plan before you subscribe, or to spot a cheaper tier that already covers what you need.

How to use this chart

Find your primary use case in the left-hand rows of each table, then compare price against included models and standout features. Pricing and included features shift often — this chart reflects each provider’s publicly listed plan details as of July 2026; always confirm current pricing on the provider’s own page before subscribing.

Standard tier ($8–$40/month)

Plan	Price/mo	Best for	Notable inclusion
ChatGPT Go	~$8	Budget entry point	Ad-supported, lighter usage caps
ChatGPT Plus	$20	General use + creative extras	Sora (limited), DALL-E, Advanced Voice
Claude Pro	$20 ($17 annual)	Writing & coding	Claude Code CLI included
Google AI Pro	$19.99	Google Workspace users	Multiple TB of bundled cloud storage
Perplexity Pro	$20	Research across models	Routes to GPT, Claude & Gemini; monthly API credit
GitHub Copilot Pro	$10	In-IDE coding only	Cheapest dedicated coding assistant
SuperGrok	$30	X/Twitter-integrated use	Real-time X data access

At this tier, the meaningful differences aren’t in raw model quality — they’re in what’s bundled alongside it. Claude Pro’s included Claude Code CLI, Google AI Pro’s cloud storage bundle, and Perplexity’s multi-model routing each make sense for a specific workflow rather than being universally better. If none of the bundled extras matter to you, price and usage limits are the deciding factors, and our head-to-head test scores the four $20 plans against specific use cases rather than in the abstract.

What’s changed recently

Pricing at this tier moves often enough that a chart like this one needs regular revisits. A few changes worth flagging as of August 2026:

• Google cut AI Ultra’s price substantially at Google I/O 2026, splitting it into a $99.99/month 5x tier and a $199.99/month 20x tier — a meaningful drop from the flat $249.99 it was previously priced at.
• Anthropic lowered Claude Team’s minimum seat count from 5 to 2 in late July 2026, making it accessible to much smaller teams than before.
• Claude Pro and Max subscribers began receiving a one-time $100 Claude Fable 5 usage credit starting July 20, 2026.
• GPT-5.6 began rolling out to ChatGPT Plus subscribers, with full-capability access still reserved for the $100+ tiers.

None of these changed the headline price of the standard $20 tier, but they’re the kind of tier-boundary shifts that can make a plan you dismissed six months ago worth a second look.

Power-user tier ($100–$250/month)

Plan	Price/mo	Best for	Notable inclusion
Claude Max 5×	$100	Heavy Claude Code / Opus users	~5× the Pro plan’s usage allowance
ChatGPT Pro	$200	Maximum reasoning + video	Full-capability reasoning models, unlimited Sora access
Claude Max 20×	$200	Very heavy daily Claude Code use	~20× the Pro plan’s usage allowance
Google AI Ultra (5x)	$99.99	Google power users needing more headroom than Pro	5x Pro’s usage allowance, Veo video access
Google AI Ultra (20x)	$199.99	Heaviest Google AI users, video generation	20x Pro’s usage allowance, largest storage bundle
SuperGrok Heavy	$300	Maximum Grok compute	Highest available Grok tier

Power-user tiers are almost entirely about usage headroom, not new capability — Claude Max is explicitly a multiplier on Pro’s allowance (5x or 20x), and Google’s Ultra split works the same way. The exception is ChatGPT Pro, which does unlock a genuinely different tier of reasoning model rather than just more of the same one. Before paying for one of these, it’s worth confirming you’re actually hitting the standard tier’s limits regularly — occasional rate-limiting doesn’t justify a 5-10x price jump, but daily, workflow-blocking limits usually do.

Team & business plans

Plan	Price/seat/mo	Notes
ChatGPT Team	~$25-30	Minimum seat counts apply
Claude Team Standard	$25 ($20 annual)	Minimum 2 seats (lowered from 5 in July 2026)
Claude Team Premium	$125 ($100 annual)	Includes Claude Code at team scale, minimum 2 seats
Grok Business	$30	Per-seat team pricing

Team pricing has been trending down through 2026 rather than up — Claude’s Premium seat dropped from $150 to $125 earlier this year, and the seat-minimum cut on Standard makes it viable for teams as small as two people rather than requiring a five-person commitment. If you’re evaluating a team plan primarily for one or two power users, compare the total cost against simply buying multiple individual power-user subscriptions — at small team sizes, the individual plans are sometimes cheaper and skip the admin overhead entirely.

How to choose between individual and team plans

The individual-vs-team decision usually comes down to one question: do you need centralized billing, admin controls, and shared context, or just more usage headroom for one person? A solo power user is almost always better served by an individual Max/Pro/Ultra plan than a one-seat team plan, since team plans price in admin features a single user doesn’t need. Team plans start earning their premium once you have multiple people who benefit from shared projects, centralized billing, or SSO — usually somewhere around 3-5 people, even though the minimum seat count on some plans is now as low as 2.

Glossary of terms in this chart

• Flagship model — the provider’s most capable model, usually gated to paid tiers or usage-limited on free tiers.
• Usage limits — a cap on messages or tokens within a rolling time window (e.g. per 3-5 hours), separate from the monthly price.
• Multi-model routing — automatically sending your query to whichever underlying model is best suited, instead of locking you to one provider.
• CLI/IDE integration — the ability to use the model directly inside a code editor or terminal rather than only through a chat window.
• Rolling window — a usage limit that resets on a moving basis (e.g. “45 messages per 5 hours”) rather than a fixed daily or monthly reset, so your available usage depends on what you’ve sent recently, not just the calendar.
• Seat minimum — the smallest number of team members a business plan requires you to pay for, regardless of how many people actually use it.
• Prompt caching — a discount (often up to 90% off) on input tokens that repeat across requests, relevant mainly to API pricing rather than chat subscriptions, but sometimes cited when comparing subscription value to API cost.
• Annual billing discount — a reduced effective monthly rate offered in exchange for paying a full year upfront; typically 15-20% cheaper than paying month-to-month on the same plan.

FAQ

Which plan is the best value overall?

There isn’t a single winner — see our head-to-head value test for how the four $20/month plans compare by use case.

Do I need a power-user tier?

Only if you’re regularly hitting the usage caps on a standard $20/month plan, or need a specific feature (like unlimited video generation) that’s gated to the higher tier.

Is annual billing worth it?

Usually, if you’re confident you’ll keep the subscription for the full year — the discount typically runs 15-20%, which is meaningful savings with no real downside beyond losing the ability to cancel mid-year without forfeiting the prepaid balance. If you’re not sure you’ll stick with a specific provider, the flexibility of month-to-month billing is worth more than the discount.

Why did Google AI Ultra get cheaper?

Google restructured its entire Gemini consumer pricing at I/O 2026, and Ultra’s price cut was part of a broader repricing that also affected other tiers. Providers periodically restructure pricing as compute costs shift and competitive pressure changes — it’s worth rechecking a tier you dismissed as too expensive every few months rather than assuming published prices are stable.

Can I switch tiers mid-billing-cycle?

Most providers let you upgrade immediately, prorating the difference, while downgrades typically take effect at the next billing cycle rather than immediately. Check the specific provider’s account settings before assuming either behavior — the details vary and this is a common source of billing surprises.

Do student or nonprofit discounts exist on any of these plans?

Some providers offer reduced-price education tiers (verified student status typically required), but these aren’t universal across every plan in this chart and change independently of the standard pricing shown here. Check the specific provider’s education or nonprofit pricing page directly rather than assuming a discount applies.

Subscription vs. pay-per-token API

Every plan in this chart is a flat-rate chat subscription — a fixed monthly fee for access through a chat interface, with usage metered in rolling time windows rather than exact token counts. That’s a fundamentally different pricing model from the pay-per-token API access the same providers also sell, and the two aren’t directly comparable on price alone.

Subscriptions make sense for a single person’s regular, conversational use — the flat fee is hard for metered API billing to beat once you factor in the cost of building any kind of interface around raw API access. API access makes sense once you’re building an application, automating a workflow, or need programmatic access that a chat window can’t provide — cost scales with actual usage rather than a flat seat price, which can be cheaper or more expensive than a subscription depending entirely on volume.

If you’re unsure which model fits, our API vs. Chat Interface guide walks through the decision in more depth, and the API vs. Subscription Cost Calculator finds your specific breakeven point based on real usage rather than rules of thumb.